Day Ends Muscles, stretched and tiedby blind sea scouts are fighting with bones that have been dug upby clumsy archeologists. The sun is pattingthe bay goodnightright under its bridge.It comforts your body.   BioMark J. Mitchell was born in Chicago and grew up in southern California. His latest poetry collection, Roshi San Francisco, was just […]

Omissions He never brought me home to meet his mother—or, for that matter, anyone in his family. Boys like him don’t end up with girls like me. Everybody knows that. But we chose to ignore the obvious, decided we’d play pretend for a little while. He feigned ignorance about the ones who’d preceded him, bad […]

love your children i used to write poemsto the father i never met,used to wish to meet him onstars shooting through the skies;but he never showed hisface—i was told he was a monster,but in my mind he was simplyan angel whose wings were tornfrom his body in the jealousmaw of those who sought to shoothim […]

Breakfast in Bed Morning, againthere is coffee brewing in the kitchen downstairs buthere, your lips taste like cream andmine are dripping with honey Here, light is sliced on bedsheets like banana bread andyour eyes are sunny sideeach pupil a yolkswimming in sleepy white Here, you laugh like pepper,smile like salt andmelt my butter hipswith your […]

Now I Am the Raven’s Sticks, the Nightingale’s Bidding Once I was a lie, her deceit, dreamt insidea solemn oath. Once I was a fledgling, folded in threads and nestledin another’s hands. Once I was the undertow swept along the stones of the swift seasister to the selkie’s distant shores. Once I was a soft […]

Unable To Locate Brent Carlin came into the 7-11 to buy a quart of milk.He showed me the program from our 40th reunion.My name—unable to locate. I guess I missed the emails. Well, you found me. It didn’t start out that way. I did the right things:Married the girl, raised our son—now in Florida,I cut […]

Hand-Me-Downs Heirloom seeds still bloom brightin the garden, fill supper bowls and bellies before bedtime.Treasures handed down from a white-haired grannyin a worn cotton dress, thin ankle socks limp againstthe tops of ragged shoes, who once quilted alongsidewant and despair, stitched tears of joy and sorrowand a few family secrets into each Log Cabin, Star,and […]

(Click to enlarge) Bio Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA fiction program. His stories, “Soon,”  “How To Be A Good Episcopalian,” and “Tales From A Communion Line,” have been nominated for Pushcarts. Yash’s work  has been published in The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Write City Magazine, and Ariel Chart, among others.

My Grandfather’s Allotment My grandfather had an affinity with soil,he read it every bit as well as I might read a book.Heavy clay weighed upon his rust-hobbed boots along with loam beneath his graft-chipped fingernails,these features marked for me his manly signature.Flat cap, scuff-sleeved old tweed jacket, shirtopen at the neck, best forgotten old grey […]